topic Re: battery drain in PCs & Accessories

battery drain

martynrb — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 20:52:26 GMT

I bought a 40Gb Vaio pocket a month ago, and it's loaded up with 30Gb of 256 Atrac+ music.
I have noticed that the battery drains significantly even if the player is off......from a full charge, 4 days unused will empty it.
Also I tried playing the unit continuously, and I get about 7 hours out of it.......surely this is way short of what it should be giving me?
Comments appreciated.
Martyn.

Re: battery drain

microbat — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:14:12 GMT

Apparently according to the guys at sony, the vaio doesn't actually switch off when you "switch it off" it goes into a hiberbnate/power save mode and still uses up power. This is so it can keep all you history etc going. Well, that's what they told me, when i queried it with them. As for play back it sounds a bit short but gain might be dependant upon volume you are playing at, encryptionrate/ file format i believe i read somewhere in an earlier post all effect playback time.

I think also i read in an earlier post when i ranted on about this, that after a while this becomes less of an issue.... Have a scan through the last months post's it's in there somewhere.

Hope this reassures you, my battery life appears to have improved slightly although i make sure i don't leave it off the docking station for too long a time if im not using the player just to be safe.

Even if you only get 7 hrs maximum playback with out a charge , this is still comparable with some of it's rivals and it does look the cat's nads. I think for the price it is much better than the ipod, and the zen. Shame about the software though. As the wife says can't always have good looks and brains!!!!

Re: battery drain

thewalrus73 — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 11:34:03 GMT

I've been having a similar problem with battery drain on my Vaio. Then, a week ago I charged it fully, then didn't use it. When I picked it up today I've found that it's lost all its charge again - it won't even switch on! I understand about standby mode but surely it shouldn't drain after a week when it's not been used... anyone else had this?

Re: battery drain

stuadam91 — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 11:39:45 GMT

That is in line with our experience. I would strongly recommend that you leave the player in the cradle when you are not using it. That way it is always ready, and this does not affect the battery.

The battery life does improve after a number of cycles however.

This may not be ideal, but it is how the device has been configured. It annoys many people on this forum. However, I use mine most days, and it normally returns to the cradle every night.

Re: battery drain

thewalrus73 — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:31:51 GMT

Cheers - I'll try that. I tend to stick it in my bag at the start of the week and there it stays - must be more disciplined with my charger use! I haven't had it too long so maybe things will improve over time.

Re: battery drain

Psypher5 — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 22:38:31 GMT

Likewise, mine goes in its dock every night. Sometimes I stretch it over a few days and the battery never goes under half, but the reason i got the vaio was for the dock to use everynight. So hey

Re: battery drain

MikeHu — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 12:02:55 GMT

As others have experienced, I find that 4 days is about the limit with non-use but I got almost 24 hours of continuous play with no screen activity in a test; this drops dramatically if the screen is used i.e. about 5 hours. The life extended by about 20% after a few full charges. My beef is the long charge time, over 5 hours but you can't win them all!